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If
the criminal investigation of BP and those who signed off on the
drill-site inspection sheets and safety assurances shows wilful fraud
and deception, dereliction of duty, bribes or who knows what else,
there is one additional set of criminal charges that should be added to
the list: cruelty to animals. For this is the largest case of cruelty
to animals in US history.

There is no shortage of photographs of
the animals that have died and are still dying – slowly, painfully,
drenched in oil. It is hard for anyone to see the gulls and pelicans,
blinking up through a thick coat of muck that prevents them from
flying, eating, taking a drink of water or escaping the burning heat
along the Gulf coast. It is even too much to come across video that
shows a huge rubber-gloved hand gently plucking a tiny crab out of a
puddle of black glop. Only the outline of body tells you what it is,
although its struggles tell you it is still alive. For the moment.

For
most of the animals, any help is too late. It is suspected that even if
wildlife rescuers contain a bird in time, before much oil damage has
been done, the terror of being handled by a predator, of being
force-fed, doused, scrubbed and rescrubbed, is too much for their
pounding hearts to endure. Even if they survive the trauma of being
cleaned and re-cleaned, most will likely die after their release.

One
also has to ask: "Where can they be released?" Many birds mate for
life; others are lost without their flocks. Their nesting and feeding
grounds now lie under the oil slick, their friends and family are dead
or dying. What is there for them to return to?

And what of the
turtles, dolphins and, dare I write it, the whales? Cetacean experts do
not expect whales to totally escape this slick. Once killed for their
oil, will they now be killed by ours?

Whether or not BP is
charged with cruelty, there are many things that we can do other than
just pointing a finger. Some suggestions are to provide less support to
oil companies by consuming less oil, to buy fewer plastic goods (the
beaches of Hawaiian atolls are inches deep in discarded plastic that
floats in from all over the world), and to follow recommendations
issued by the UN this month by going vegan to save the waterways, forests and ozone layer.

Paul McCartney's Meat-Free Monday
project is getting institutions and individuals to look at the
environmental devastation caused by factory farming and to do something
about it by reducing meat consumption. In taking responsibility, our
new government would do well to announce that we, too, are to embrace
at least that one baby step.

BP and the US government can never
truly make amends with cash payouts. How do you "make it up" to those
suffering and dying in agony out there at this very moment? But, before
we look away from the photographs of the umpteenth oil-coated heron,
let's do something positive and make some personal choices ourselves so
that none of the oil companies can claim consumer demand as a reason
for misbehaving. It's just a thought.

Further

Americans spent President's Day wishing we had one, honoring the 44 former actual ones we did have along with a few fictional contenders - Vote For Lisa Simpson! - and marching to protest the sick hollow shell of a human being now occupying a once-lofty office. Meanwhile, after just one ugly, tattered, inept, felonious year in office, The Cheeto has already been declared by 170 political pundits the worst president in history. What a surprise. Said no one ever.